Interview

Interview with The HOBOS

The HOBOS (Hedonism Obsessed Bunch of Shamans), a decade-old experimental progressive rock band from the city, has launched their maiden album. SIMPLY KOLKATA caught up with Souvik (vocals), Arko (guitar), Shubhajit (drums), Abhradeep (bass) and Suman (keyboards) for a quick chat.

Q. You've been around since 2004. What took you so long to bring out the album?A. The music that we have in this album is very Indian. We have used a lot of Indian classical ragas and instruments such as the tanpura, santoor and more. It's quite unique and very technically evolved. Putting it together with the kind of rock music we needed a lot of finesse. We have put in a lot of research, which can only come with time.

Q. The H of Hobos stands for hedonism. But all your songs are quite angry and angsty. Where's the hedonism?A. The letter S stands for shamans. So anger and fighting against the evils in our society is also an ethos of the band.

Q. Is your evolution as a band over the years obvious through any of your songs?A. We don't know if it's obvious through any of our songs but we can say the subject matter has evolved. Our earlier songs such as Trance of Mahakaal and Kurukshetra were influenced by mythology. Both the songs are based on eastern classical ragas.and Purya Dhanashree and Bhairav. But the songs which we composed later were more influenced by reality. For example, Broken is about children who come from broken homes. Honour is about soldiers who died protecting us from terrorist attacks, while Lust is about insatiable greed for more, about the evil within.

Q. Has your music changed with your change in taste of music?A. Our tastes have changed but that hasn't really influenced our music. We used to listen to Pink Floyd and Dream Theatre before and now we are listening to more and more of Indian classical but that isn't really what changed the course of our songs. Earlier our focus was on making our music as technically complex as possible to win competitions. Now, we have made our beats somewhat simpler and groovier so that people can relate more to the music.

Q. How has Kolkata influenced your music?A. Kolkata is our home. It is an undefinable part of our music.

Get real-time alerts and all the news on your phone with the all-new India Today app. Download from